GERBILLON, JEAN-FRANÇOIS. - Jesuit, missionary, co-founder and superior of the French mission in Peking, b. at Verdun on 4 June 1654, d. at Peking on 27 March 1707. Having reached China (1687), he was received at the court of the emperor K'ang-hi, together with Fr. J. Bouvet, among the number of the imperial mathematicians; in 1688 he was invited, as plenipotentiary ambassador, to the Russians for the determination of the mutual frontiers; he made eight journeys into Tartary, sometimes in the Emperor's retinue, taking advantage of them to study the country, its inhabitants, their usages and customs. Always greatly esteemed by K'ang-hi, who learned geometry from him, he obtained from him an edict of freedom for the Catholic religion (1692) and shortly afterwards, having cured him of an illness, a large plot of land for the erection of a church and of a house for the fathers, inaugurated on 9 Dec. 1703. Over the entrance of the church were placed three inscriptions dictated by the Emperor himself.
He left, besides many letters, partly unpublished: Éléments de géometrie (Peking 1689) and Géometrie pratique et théorique (ibid. 1690) in Tartar and in Chinese; the two principal works are in Chinese: Observations historiques sur la grande Tartarie et Relation de huit voyages dans la grande Tartarie de 1688 à 1699 (published in J. B. du Halde, Description... de l'empire de la Chine et de la Tartarie chinoise, IV, Paris 1735, respectively pp. 39-70 and 87-422).
Bibliography2 worksSommervogel, III, coll. 1346-48; L. Pfister, Notices biograph. et bibliograph. sur les Jésuites de l'ancienne mission de Chine, 1532-1772, I
BIBL.: Sommervogel, III, coll. 1346-48; L. Pfister, Notices biograph. et bibliograph. sur les Jésuites de l'ancienne mission de Chine, 1532-1772, I, Shanghai 1932, pp. 443-51.
Testore, Celestino. “Gerbillon, jean-françois.” In Enciclopedia Cattolica, vol. VI, p. 80. Città del Vaticano: Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico, 1951. https://azioneromana.com/article/gerbillon-jean-francois.
MLA
Testore, Celestino. “Gerbillon, jean-françois.” Enciclopedia Cattolica, vol. VI, Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico, 1951, p. 80. Azione Romana, https://azioneromana.com/article/gerbillon-jean-francois.
BibTeX
@incollection{ec6_gerbillon_jean_francois,
author = {Testore, Celestino},
title = {Gerbillon, jean-françois},
booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica},
volume = {VI},
publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico},
address = {Città del Vaticano},
year = {1951},
url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/gerbillon-jean-francois}
}
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